


You and Me Are a Pack of Dogs

by Marasa



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Hurt/Comfort, Kendall is protective, M/M, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:22:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marasa/pseuds/Marasa
Summary: Kendall trusted Greg. He kept Greg close. That only made Greg feel guiltier about claiming to be fine.
Relationships: Greg Hirsch/Tom Wambsgans, Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	You and Me Are a Pack of Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Party Drugs” by Jessica Lea Mayfield

The dust had settled after the press conference but the future wasn’t any clearer. 

Greg thought he’d feel different. He had suffered all the uncertainty and trepidation at the beginning, knowing it would all be worth it in the end once Uncle Logan was dethroned and Kendall took his place. There would be a slew of new opportunities and a high position at the company, perhaps even COO. But Greg knew this rebellion would destroy what he had with Tom; Greg had tried his best to convince himself sacrifices needed to be made. 

Kendall would never talk to Logan again. Greg would never talk to Tom again. They would both be excommunicated from the Roy family. 

But Greg couldn’t be sure he had made the right decision.

Kendall was doing just fine, or that was what it seemed like a lot of the time. He appeared reinvigorated and more alive than Greg had ever seen him before. He fit into his new position as head boss. Sure Kendall had to sort through plenty of mess but he faced the challenge with a determination that made Greg feel that much more inadequate.

Kendall had no more time for his bad habits but Greg readily adopted them in secret. 

Greg knew he was cultivating a problem when he began to lie about what and how he was doing. The cocaine use had gone from ‘sometimes’ to ‘usually’ to ‘always.’ He couldn’t admit to it yet. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t sure what self-exacted apocalypse would befall his own body and soul if he heard the truth of his dependency from his own lips.

The high was enough to chase away reality momentarily, one significant piece of that reality being the fact Tom wasn’t talking to him. Wasn’t it sad, he thought, that he’d gotten along without Tom all these years and now he was rocked by the silence and the aftermath of his betrayal. Greg couldn’t quite shake that his perceived selfishness might just land Tom in prison or how Greg believed in the pit of his being that he deserved that very fate instead. 

Greg squeezed his eyes shut and drew his fingers into a fist where his hand rested on the leather seat. 

“Everything good?” 

Kendall looked up from his phone at Greg. They'd gotten closer after shit hit the fan. There was no other choice. The fallout family-wise had been catastrophic, and Greg was the last piece of family not obliterated by the explosion of their actions. There was a fondness there; at times, Greg felt like he was more of a little brother than a little cousin to Kendall. 

Kendall was the clinger of things. Kendall clung like he was afraid he’d be lost. He’d once clung to his father but now he clung to Greg in a way vaguely paternal. It didn’t feel so much now like Kendall was afraid he himself would be lost but like Greg would be lost, or like the minuscule remnants of Kendall’s old life would be lost. 

Kendall trusted Greg. He kept Greg close. That only made Greg feel guiltier about claiming to be fine. 

“Yeah,” Greg muttered. His face was still a little tingly from the lines he’d before they left the office. “I’m good, dude.”

“Don’t worry about this meeting,” Kendall assured and returned back to his emails. “These are our PR people; they’re on our side. That’s what we pay them for.”

Greg rested his head on the window and closed his eyes as to ward off the dizzying sight of Manhattan. One fist remained tight on his seat but the other remained in his pocket, the little baggy pinched between his fingers like his secret security blanket or some holy thing of salvation. 

* * *

Greg might have been dying. 

He wasn’t dying, was he? Was this what it felt like? It was dark and cold and he couldn’t stop shaking. 

Greg’s time with well-meaning strangers at this club in Brooklyn had been a blur, and he’d done too much too fast. The concoction of treats, questionable in quality, that he’d effortlessly thrown back were all convening in his bloodstream at once. Downers met uppers met feel-goods met edges-of-death. Greg had wanted to forget all about the atrocious things Tom had said to him right after the press conference. He’d also wanted to forget all the evil shit he had done in his attempt of ascending the Waystar echelon, but it was crashing down on him now that his body was being torn in all different directions from the inside-out. 

Greg stumbled out of the humid, stale-smelling club and out onto the quiet street. Searing heat pulsed through his skin, sticky and cold in the winter wind. Nausea raged in his belly and lapped up his throat. Greg’s breath stuttered in time with the racing of his heart, the poor muscle spasming in his chest with such an electric zeal, Greg thought for sure it would explode in his chest. 

Greg retrieved his phone from his pocket hurriedly, nearly dropping it onto the pavement in the process.

 _“What the fuck.”_ Kendall’s voice was groggy and curt on the other line. _“Greg?”_

“K-Kendall?” Greg stammered. “Yeah. Uhm. I was just wondering if it would be okay, if I came over?”

_“It’s three in the fucking morning. What do you need.”_

What _did_ he need? Greg wasn’t sure. It was freezing. He would have liked to be warm. But hadn’t this past year proven how he would never find warmth in the Roy family, in their empire?

“Home…” Greg wanted to go home. 

_“What?”_

“Dude, please,” Greg said once he focused again. “I just—can I come over? I-I really gotta talk to you, man.”

_“About what? Greg. Where are you? Is everything okay?”_

No.

“Kendall—“

 _“Come straight up.”_ It was clear in the firmness in Kendall’s voice that he knew something was wrong. _“I’ll let the doorman know you’re coming. Okay? Greg—”_

Greg hung up. He couldn’t muster the strength to form another word when achy discomfort swelled in a singular wave crashing into him stronger than before. He couldn’t be sure what was wrong with him, just knew he needed to figure out the way uptown, fast. 

* * *

Greg eventually made his way into Manhattan but not without catching the wrong train twice.

Thankfully he had committed Kendall’s place to muscle memory. Greg’s legs moved on their own accord while he worried about the exponential curve of his discomfort. He moved right past the awaiting doorman and fell into the elevator with a strangled heave.

Worried as he might have been over the phone, Kendall was irritated about having been woken up. His arms were crossed over his chest as he stood outside of the elevator in his home, glaring tiredly. His expression quickly changed, however, upon the doors sliding open to reveal the mess of a man. 

“Holy shit.”

Greg had tried to rid himself of his jacket during the elevator ride but the piece of clothing had gotten so far as his elbows before getting stuck. He was frantic, tangled up in himself, wind-bitten and scared, as he came falling into his cousin’s expensive apartment.

He slipped on the wet bottoms of his shoes slick with melted snow and careened forward, but Kendall moved fast on socked feet, a blue cable-knit cardigan pulled over his pajama set of a loose t-shirt and sweatpants. Kendall caught him but he was so much smaller than Greg, the gangly giant. It was like trying to support a toppling building from the ground. 

Greg’s mind was a whirlwind. Time seemed to be skipping. Gravity was flipping back and forth in intensity over him. Somewhere in the storm of his mind came words familiar to him, fragmented as they were: accusations from morose senators, lines of disappointment from his mother, hateful voicemails and text messages from a man who had once loved him. 

Tom. _Tom._

Kendall guided Greg into the living room where he fell back onto the couch. Greg freed an arm from his jacket sleeve in a bout of violent flailing and tore off the jacket in panicked frustration, throwing it onto the floor. 

“ _Jesus,_ hold on, dude,” Kendall said, louder now. “Greg, what’s going on? What happened?” 

But before he could even answer, Kendall saw Greg’s shirt sodden with sweat and his huge pupils pinballing back and forth. A subdued horror fell over Kendall’s face. 

They both turned toward the movement of Stewy emerging from the hallway in the midst of pulling on a shirt. “What’s going on?”

“He’s on something,” Kendall said. “He’s freaking out. Get me a cold rag.”

Greg went to say he wasn’t on anything, some kind of sad excuse considering how very obvious the opposite was, but found it difficult to move his tongue effectively. 

Kendall might have wanted to say something about Stewy being here but he was too concerned with this matter at hand. He sat on the edge of the coffee table directly in front of Greg, brow pinched and shoulders tense. “What did you take? How much?”

“I-I need to go,” Greg said. “I have to get home—“

“No, hold on!” Kendall blocked him before Greg could stand from the couch. “What did you want to talk to me about? You said on the phone you needed to talk to me. I’m listening.”

Listening. Kendall was listening. No one ever really listened to Greg. Greg wanted to express his gratitude but his mouth was already moving around his biggest concern now that Kendall wasn’t too busy for him. 

“I want to go back to Canada,” Greg said, breath still coming in painfully short. He might have been having a panic attack, actually. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t belong here—“

Greg shot up quick with a heaving hiccup. Kendall’s eyes went wide. 

“ _Shit,_ go to the bathroom! That way, no! Other door!”

Greg had always imagined the better days of their reign, never these days where the world felt like it was ending. It hit him hard as soon as his knees hit the bathroom floor and he lost the contents of his stomach. 

Kendall hurried in with Stewy following close behind, wet rag in hand. 

“Fuck. Okay. Hey, you’re okay,” Kendall assured quietly, sounding as shocked as Greg felt. “Greg, tell me how much you took and what it was; I need to know.”

Greg babbled what he could remember, falling off into apologies and mismatched thoughts that were of no help at all. Kendall took the rag from Stewy and used it to wipe Greg’s face and chin. 

“I’m sorry.” Greg flinched at the flush of the toilet, fingers white-knuckling the bowl. “I’m sorry I came here—”

“Trust us,” Stewy said from over Kendall’s shoulder, “this isn’t our first time around the block.”

And as such, they rejected any and all propositions Greg made that he should leave, right now. Kendall looked ready to wrestle him to the ground if he so much as tried, while Stewy stood watching.

“Listen,” Kendall said, exasperated already, “you can’t go like this; it’s not safe.”

“Kid, we’ll get you a plane ticket or whatever you want,” Stewy said, “but you have to stay here for the night. You’re in bad, bad shape, man.”

Greg gave up his rambling. It was no use; they had been listening before but weren’t anymore. They thought they knew what was best for him.

 _Maybe they do,_ Greg caught himself thinking, but then hated himself for it, hated the implication that he was actually in real trouble. He’d freak himself out too much.

He was much too exhausted to fight them, so he let Kendall and Stewy fret over him. 

There was a different capability on display here. Kendall and Stewy moved with expertise and with a surprising amount of care as they gauged the extent of the situation. They fed Greg water and checked his heart rate with two fingers pressed to the inside of his wrist. Kendall helped Greg change out of his soiled shirt and into one of Stewy’s, and Stewy helped pull Greg’s sweaty hair off his face with an elastic headband that must have been Rava’s. 

Greg dozed off right there between the toilet and the tub. His head was still swimming dizzily with all the poison in his blood, but he gauged the way Kendall wiped clean the corners of his mouth with the wet rag and how Stewy dimmed the lights so they were not as offensive.

He’d never been close to his mother but Greg kind of missed her right then. 

“I’m sorry.” For everything, Greg meant. Tom had called him a terrible person. Maybe he was. 

”I know,” Kendall sighed. He’d been sitting on the floor next to Greg for the past half hour, yawning hard and wincing with a pain in his back but never once complained.

Stewy, standing nearby, might have looked entirely annoyed had it not been the faintest glint of concern and empathy for the naive, sick, confused kid curled up around the toilet. 

“You’ve changed.” Greg’s face was pale, the hollows of his eyes dark. His voice was worn as he spoke to Kendall, whose worried gaze was fixed tiredly on him. “You care.”

“I’ve always cared,” Kendall said quietly. “It’s just hard to show it.”

Greg felt the need to apologize for the sorry state of both of them and the fact that they were like ‘this’—broken people, clinging to things that hurt them. But he gave up any word when yet another wave of nausea met him.

* * *

The night seemed never ending.

Each hour stretched on forever. Greg stayed in the bathroom and got sick too many times to count. He sweated through Stewy’s shirt in record time and regularly voiced apologies that came more as annoyances than anything. 

Greg quieted finally as he fell lightly asleep, more on the verge of unconsciousness than resting. And that was when he heard Kendall ask quietly, “Is it my fault?”

“Is what your fault?” Stewy asked. 

“He wasn’t like this at the beginning. You saw him—he was, just… some goofy kid. ‘Greg the Egg.’ Now he’s doing enough drugs to kill a fucking elephant.”

“No worse than any other Wall Street yuppie.”

“That’s not the point,” Kendall snapped. “Maybe this is too much for him. It’s the Roy way to corrupt anyone who gets remotely close to us.”

“Bullshit,” Stewy said. “You didn’t corrupt me.”

“You fell in love with me; it’s not that different.” 

Stewy gave a sigh. “Ken, he’s just like us when we were that age. He’s just getting swept up in all of it. It’s a lot. It’s no one’s fault.”

“It’s like looking in a mirror,” Kendall whispered, and he sounded truly horrified. Greg grunted sleepily when the rag pressed to his fevered head again, his cheek. 

“Ken,” came Stewy’s voice, “go to bed. I got him.”

Kendall relented only after checking Greg’s heart rate once more. He stood and Greg heard the soft click of a kiss and the murmur of soft words as Stewy assured Kendall that everything would be all right. 

Greg didn’t know Stewy all that well. He’d seen him a bit more frequently at Waystar now that Kendall was in charge; Kendall liked Stewy, so Greg got used to him being around. He’d been there long before all of this, long before Greg even, back when Kendall was a colossal fuck up.

Their feelings for each other might not have been as unnoticeable as they hoped they were. The way they looked at each other, the way they laughed, even the way they talked about business held in it an infatuation that Greg had started noticing from his first days at Waystar.

It made him wonder if his and Tom’s relationship had been as obvious. Tom had demanded they keep it secret, never mind his wife sleeping with strangers right under her husband’s nose; it wasn’t healthy the way they were sneaking around. It had been exciting at the beginning but it had quickly gotten messy and humiliating. Greg had started resenting Tom around then.

Greg remembered at Tom’s bachelor party—an event he didn’t like to think a lot about given how painful it was and how that might have been the start of his personal decline—how Stewy had been surrounded in an anxious energy. Stewy had _needed_ to see Kendall to see if he was okay, if he was alive. As hectic as that night had been, somewhere off in the corner of his mind, Greg commended their relationship.

Had Tom ever needed to see Greg like Greg needed to see him? Or was it Greg who had been destined to yearn alone?

Greg wanted to hit something as much as he wanted to cry. 

Stewy was quiet now as he sifted through his emails, glancing frequently, however, over at Greg. Where Kendall fretted, Stewy was silent and vigilant in his gaze. Greg didn’t know how to read him and suddenly didn’t care all that much as he was violently compelled to hunch over the toilet once more. 

Stewy grumbled something like annoyance but came up behind him, resting a hand between his shoulder blades and patting there stiffly every now and then. So Stewy wasn’t necessarily a natural at this stuff, but at least he was trying. 

Greg collapsed weakly back against the side of the tub while Stewy filled up a small plastic cup beneath the sink. 

“Kendall—” Greg began.

“He’s asleep, buddy.” Stewy turned the faucet off. “He’ll probably be up soon.” 

Greg shook his head with a furrow of his brow. 

“What?” Stewy said. “No?”

“No, I mean—” Greg took a breath. “You’re good, for Kendall.”

It was clear Stewy didn’t care much about Greg’s opinions about his, relatively secret, relationship with Kendall but he humored him, perhaps out of pity. “Yeah? You approve?”

Greg took the cup of water shakily from him and tilted it to his lips. Stewy’s hand hovered close to the cup, prepared to catch it if it slipped from his grip.

“You love him,” Greg said.

Stewy smirked briefly. “It’s that obvious, huh?” Stewy asked, but got no answer. 

Another hour passed, half of which had done so without incident, so Greg said to his cousin’s boyfriend, “Stewy? I think I’m done.”

“Yeah? All right.” Stewy pocketed his phone and moved to help Greg up. He sounded tired but he was still attentive. “Let’s go lay down. C’mon.” 

No one ever really took care of Greg when he was sick. Greg wanted to tell Stewy this but was still too discombobulated. He fell unceremoniously onto the couch. The unnatural heat in his body was only now beginning to break. Greg shivered slightly and Stewy pulled some blankets over him and slipped a pillow beneath his head. 

Greg’s thoughts were a jumbled mess but he thought that Stewy might not have been nearly as accommodating if he had not thought Greg’s state wasn’t actually serious. 

He was kind of surprised Stewy cared at all. 

“I’m not a monster.”

Greg would have been embarrassed any other time upon realizing he’d spoken that part out loud but for now he just laid there on his side in the dark. 

“Maybe it would make some things easier if I was,” Stewy mused as he took a seat in a nearby armchair, “but I’m not. It’s not hard to care about stuff like this. I’ve lost friends, you know. I’m not saying that to scare you, it’s just a fact.” Stewy sounded thoughtful. “It’s not a game, Greg. This whole thing—it gets ugly, fast. And I think you’re starting to see that. Yeah, no,” Stewy scoffed lightly without any actual amusement, “it’s not hard to feel something for someone who’s drowning just a few feet away from me.”

Greg shut his eyes. Exhaustion settled in his bones and weighed heavily on him, and Greg finally sunk into sleep after so long awake. 

He stayed asleep throughout the night, but Greg was the first to wake upon the first shine of dawn through the living room’s gray curtains. He needed to take a leak, and battling through his enormous hangover, sat up and went to swing his feet over the side but stopped.

Kendall and Stewy were asleep on the floor immediately beside the couch. They were wrapped in a thick blanket, Kendall’s head on Stewy’s chest and an unused bucket nearby. Emotion welled up in Greg’s raw throat. He kind of wanted to cry if only his head didn’t hurt so much and he wasn’t so dehydrated. 

The sofa creaked as Greg went to stand up. Kendall woke at the sound and squinted up at him. 

“Greg?” Kendall croaked. Stewy hummed sleepily, legs shifting under the blanket. “You okay?”

“Gonna go to the bathroom,” Greg murmured. 

Kendall nodded. “You’re good, though?” 

“I’m fine…”

Greg moved off down the hall before Kendall could make him feel any worse. Easier said than done, ultimately; Greg felt like he had been run over. A migraine pulsed behind his eyes. His muscles ached, his stomach was sore. The sight of the toilet brought with it terrible memories just some hours old, but as soon as he finished, Greg closed the toilet lid and sat on it, resting his aching head in his hand.

Last night was beginning to catch up with him. Greg wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go from here. He’d made an ass of himself, made himself dangerously sick, and still now he was craving something, anything, to just help him forget.

There was a knock at the door.

“Hm?”

The door pushed open carefully. Kendall stepped inside. He looked tired but attentive, a deep concern still tainting his features. 

“So. What was that all about?” Kendall asked. Greg shrugged, shook his head. “You looked half-dead. You still do. I thought we might have to go to the hospital last night.”

Greg said nothing. He felt like when he was a little kid getting chewed out by his mom. He didn’t even make eye contact with Kendall but he didn’t have to; the pain and panic were audible in his words. 

“What would have happened if someone saw you like that and wanted to rob you, hurt you? What would have happened if you overdosed in some alleyway in Brooklyn, in the freezing cold? Huh?”

Greg hadn’t really considered it, but that was what he had been flirting with last night, hadn’t it? It was actually kind of jarring to think about it that way. Greg was shaky as he scoffed and shook his head. Kendall tensed in his periphery.

“What,” Kendall said. “Say it.”

“Why are you talking to me like you weren’t the same way? It’s…hypocritical.”

“I’m not a hypocrite; I’m scared!” And Kendall really did look scared in his own way. His fists, clenched at his sides, eased and then went loose. His clenched jaw let up. The slight sheen of moisture in his eyes, however, remained. “I'm scared for you,” Kendall said. “I’ve been where you are and I don’t want that for you, Greg.”

It was almost too much for Greg to hear right now. Greg wanted to put his hands over his ears, shut his eyes, block out the entire world so he didn’t have to feel guilty or scared of himself. 

But the level of concern in his cousin’s voice had Greg facing himself. He wasn’t okay. This was out of control, or getting close to it. Greg was scared, too. He just wanted to be okay.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Greg said. 

“Then don’t.” Kendall wiped the corner of his eye quickly. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. You don’t have to feel like this. Ask for help if you need it. Do you need help?”

Help. Here it was, thrown out to him by this man that was his only family left. Kendall, Stewy—they understood where Greg was. Kendall had lived it. Stewy had seen it closely in people he loved. They were offering him the help they knew he needed.

So after a second, Greg gave a nod. His whole body ached but he felt a small bit of relief at his agreement. 

“Okay,” Kendall said softly. “Okay. We’ll get you help.”

Greg rose somewhat shakily. His hair was a mess and he desperately needed a shower. His muscles were still, his body hard to maneuver but he managed to shuffle across the cold bathroom tile. 

Greg bent down and wrapped his long arms around Kendall’s shoulders. And this time, Kendall hugged him back.

“You’ll be okay, dude,” Kendall murmured. “Stewy and I are here for you. Okay?”

”Thanks, man.” And for the first time, Greg felt strong enough to face the future.


End file.
